Saturday, December 31, 2011

On a farm in Paradise, N.S., lies the grave of a horse named Fritz -- a warhorse, it turns out, that survived the horrors of the First World War and lived out his final days in peace in Canada.

As the fictional tale of the Steven Spielberg film War Horse appears on movie screens across North America, and as a stage version of the novel by the same name opens in Toronto, the real-life saga of a true Canadian warhorse is now emerging out of the past.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

But the Museum of the Great War in Meaux, inaugurated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, last month and already exceeding expected visitor numbers, is also the first move in France's new campaign to develop itself as the world capital of war tourism.

France is still the world's number one tourist destination. But while its reputation for shopping has slumped, the government now hopes its wealth of battlefields, memorial sites, trenches and war cemeteries holds the key to attracting tourists. More than 20 million tourists a year visit France for its battle sites and war history. That number is expected to soar with the centenary of the first world war in 2014 and the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings, already triggering a round of renovations and new themed tours.

The only tangible reminder most of us have of this terrible conflict are our war memorials which tend to attract publicity for the right – and wrong – reasons. Heart-warming renovation stories are countered with heart-rending stories of theft of metal plaques, vandalism and other abuse; the latter prompting people to put finger to keyboard, usually to express their disgust. In short, when the chips are down, society, for the most part, cares – and the 2018 Centenary gives us a chance to prove it.

My idea is the creation of a “National War Memorial Restoration Fund” to be used to renovate, where necessary, our war memorials to their original condition by November 2018. The fund would be government (i.e. taxpayers’) money aimed specifically at the necessary structural checks, re-engraving and specialist stone and metal cleaning etc. to counter the 90 years or so of erosion our war memorials have suffered.

Merry Christmas 2011. A link to the podcast over at the Imperial War Museum on the 1914 Christmas truce.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM’s Voices of the First World War

Here is the ninth in a series of podcasts that delve into the IWM’s Sound Archive to bring you the voices of those who lived through the First World War. Find out what a huge range of people felt, experienced and witnessed during 1914–1918, and the impact the events of those years had on their lives.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 has become almost legendary over time, with stories of German and British soldiers putting down their arms to play football in no man’s land. But what really happened? Find out from those who witnessed this incredible – and unexpected – piece of history.

Friday, December 23, 2011

The British Post Office in the First World War. They have a museum with a section on their role.

The breakout of war across the world posed a massive challenge for the postal system that not only had to maintain a service at home but was now also having to provide a service to ever changing theatres of war around the world and at sea. The British Post Office not only had to rise to this massive challenge, but had to do so with reduced numbers of staff. The organisation sent thousands of men off to fight in the war and also to help run the postal service at the front lines. Many of these men were to never return home. Women were employed in huge numbers to fill the gaps left by men. The Post Office were to lead the way in providing employment for women that was to go on after the war to help in the cause of women’s suffrage.

Mr. McMeekin rightly claims that for too long World War I historians have not paid enough attention to the importance of Russian imperialist ambitions in the war's origins. But his well-written attempt to compensate goes too far in the other direction, by stating that "the current consensus about the First World War cannot survive serious scrutiny." As he makes clear, the Russian establishment acted as recklessly as its counterparts in Berlin and Vienna, followed closely by those in Paris, London and other capitals. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Max Hastings in the Financial Times last year on the fighting in the Dolomites.

This place was a unique and terrible battlefield. Here, between June 1915 and October 1917, amid scorching summer sun, winter ice and snow, Italians fighting in the allied cause struggled for mastery against Austrians and Germans.

Few modern Europeans know much of Italy’s part in the first world war. The nation, led by Antonio Salandra, the prime minister, rashly entered the conflict in pursuit of territorial gains at the expense of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Its army was ill-equipped, its generals incompetent even by comparison with their French and British counterparts. At Versailles in 1919, Italy gained most of the lands it coveted, but they were soaked in blood. Some 689,000 of its men were dead, from a population of 35m.

Most of the slaughter took place around the Izonzo river close to the border with modern Slovenia. But Italian generals in their madness also made repeated attempts to push into Hapsburg territory north-west from Cortina, up lofty passes commanded by Austrian guns.

HG Wells, who paid a propaganda visit on behalf of the British government in 1916, described the Dolomites as “grim and wicked, worn old mountains. They tower overhead in enormous vertical cliffs of sallow grey, with square jointings and occasional clefts and gullies, their summits toothed and jagged.”

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Part 1 of Passchendaele on the Canadian Army. The balance of the parts easily found in youtube. Be forwarned, this is a movie with an opening scene featuring a bayonet to the head. Check Wikipedia for a blurb about the film.

One hundred previously unseen photos of those who served and died in the First World War have been uploaded to Flickr for Armistice Day by the Imperial War Museum.
The Museum was set up in the final months of the Great War, to record the conflict and,

to collect and display material as a record of everyone’s experiences during that war – civilian and military – and to commemorate the sacrifices of all sections of society.

In 1917, thousands of bereaved families sent in portraits of men who served in the war – sometimes their only photograph. These were amongst the first items collected by IWM and it’s a fascinating and poignant collection. As part of the build up to the museum’s First World War Centenary Programme, more Faces of the First World War will be uploaded every weekday until August 2014.